We Are All Our Own Devil
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: After spending months looking into his eyes but never quite seeing him, Claire finally recognizes Roderick for who he really is: Very mature, warnings Follow-up to the 'Friends with Benefits'


_**We Are All Our Own Devil **_**(1/1)**

**Characters:** Claire Matthews, Roderick Nelson

**Rating: **NC-17, sexual assault, implied violence

**Disclaimer: **The title belongs to Company of Thieves.

**Summary:** After spending months looking into his eyes but never quite seeing him, Claire finally recognizes Roderick for who he really is: Tim.

**Author's Note: **Though I wrote almost this entire story in one night, it's taken me literally over an entire month to revise it and actually finish it. I'm so happy it's finally done but I'm very nervous about how it stands up to what I first imagined, and what people will think of it. But I guess this is it. Here we go…

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_**Background: **__Kindly bear with me… I have a strange idea. A while back, I was talking with someone who RPed Roderick on tumblr, and we had a series of conversations about him. We both agreed that he'd suffered abuse as a young child, but the RPer also thought that he'd been abused throughout his life—even in college, where, I believe, he was Joe's student (for at least a semester). While I didn't initially agree with this theory (and I'm still not sure I completely do now), the idea stuck in my head. It explained why Joe might take an interest in him, and why Roderick/Tim would've followed Joe (his savior/creator) so devoutly. Now, if you can suspend your disbelief for a couple pages here and imagine that scene where Joe his Roderick for his disobedience somewhere during the _Friends with Benefits _storyline, hopefully this will all make sense._

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_**We are all our own Devil,**_

_**and we make this world our Hell.**_

_._

_._

Claire had been staring out the window, watching the rain fall on the empty lawns and seemingly endless forests, when she heard his voice call out to her. Her back stiffened at the sound of it, and chills spread down her body and through her legs, making her knees weak in nothing close to a pleasurable manner.

"Come with me."

Without bothering to so much as consult the rest of her, her legs tensed, ready to run, flee, escape. It was pure instinct, and luckily the rest of her knew the instinct was hopeless, and so she remained firmly in place. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run—absolutely no incentive to try to refuse. (It wasn't that she hadn't tried to refuse before—she had—but being strangled half to death tends to put things in perspective. Suddenly threatening not to cooperate no longer seemed so courageous.)

He knew this about her—knew she'd given in, wouldn't fight, wouldn't refuse—and so she couldn't help but flinch when he grabbed onto her upper arm, his fingers closing around her flesh like a vice. _That isn't necessary, _she wanted to tell him. _I'm not going to run._ Uneasiness brewed in her gut when he didn't immediately let go upon turning her to the door, for she knew if he didn't let of her soon—very soon—she'd be sporting a bruise for all to see. For Joe to see—and question and wonder—and worry over, just like a good husband would.

She couldn't have that.

She tried to look over at Roderick, to judge just how unsavory he and his intentions appeared tonight before she tried asking him to let go, but before she could even sneak a peek at him, he'd begun to walk, and had forced her ahead of him. She didn't dare look back for fear of worsening what already looked like would be a rough night.

To keep herself from inadvertently turning back to him, she instead kept herself busy looking out for others as they moved from the east wing of the house towards the central staircase, but to her dismay, they did not pass one person on their trip to the center of the house. If they had, she expected he would've had to let go of her arm. Even if it would have only been for a few seconds, she would've welcomed it. She wasn't sure her blood was circulating properly anymore.

They were just past the first landing when she felt something different in his iron-hard grip on her arm. There was something slowly seeping from his grip through the fabric of her sweater—something wet—but she didn't dare look over at his hand for fear of seeing it covered in blood. Even the simple thought of it made her stomach clench and roil with fear and disgust. He'd come to her before with another person's blood on him, raped her with another person's blood on him, and she'd consequently had to spend many hours afterwards hunched over the toilet throwing up. She did not want that to happen again. She'd eaten three square meals today and she was not looking forward to forfeiting them. So she kept her eyes ahead, walked at a normal pace, and didn't speak to him as he guided her up the rest of the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom.

Though she was the one in front, it was his hand that reached forward to open her door. He didn't speak as he did so, nor as he marched her inside, and when he let go of her, it was still without him having uttered one word. Fear began needling her thoughts in earnest as she stood alone in the room with him and realized just how silent it was. Rarely did he pass up an opportunity to ridicule or threaten her—even when he only had a couple seconds to whisper in her ear, he always made sure to use them. Tonight he had perfect conditions—ample opportunity and literally no witnesses—so why was he not taking advantage of making this as painful as possible for her like he usually did?

She stood in the middle of the room, puzzling over it all, as she rubbed her sore arm to return some feeling to it—it felt almost completely numb—and watched him barricade the door. Since her room did not lock from the inside, he'd taken to borrowing the chair from her desk to act both as a lock and temporary blockade to intruders. So far it hadn't yet been needed. (That always made Claire wonder about the people around her, the ones that had to have heard her, late at night, after he'd had his fun with her and left. Did they just not care, or had they been ordered not to intervene? Worse yet, did they listen in as if it was entertainment?)

When Roderick finished blocking off her only exit, he turned around and faced her for the first time that night, and she couldn't contain the gasp that tore through her throat. His once perfectly proportioned face was now hardly anything more than a bloody mess; his unnaturally bent nose the epicenter of it all. "What _happened _to you?" she demanded to know, not watching her mouth, her eyes glued to his ruined face like one might watch a slow-motion car crash. Dried blood covered his nose—which looked broken even from this distance—and more of it was still streaming down his face, collecting on his lips and chin before falling to the floor. He hadn't had it treated in any way and it had already begun to swell past its normal size.

She felt her heart's pulse pick up within her chest as her eyes travelled to his hands—_please no, please not again_—but thankfully, there was no blood on his hands this time, save for the smears he had clearly wiped away from his own face. Relief lasted only a moment before she realized that just because he didn't have blood on his hands this time didn't mean that he hadn't killed someone. His face attested to the fact that he hadn't gotten away from the fight unscathed—maybe he'd used a gun to put down whoever had offended him. Whatever had happened, Claire was sure she'd hear him brag about it soon enough. She was forever his captive audience.

Finally managing to tear her eyes away from his face, she looked him over for other injuries. She didn't want to inadvertently knock something that would cause him to lash out at her. It took a few seconds of her staring at him for her to realize what was off—he was _soaking _wet. His clothes stuck to him like they'd been painted on. She could see the outlines of all his muscles through the fine fabric; see the strength in his upper arms and torso, the flatness of his stomach. Even though the thicker fabric of his pants, she could see the faint forms of his powerful quadriceps.

She had to squeeze her shoulders together to contain the shiver that ran through her at the sight of him. If his nose hadn't been shattered and his face covered in blood, she would've thought he'd come to her dressed like this for effect. _Don't run—because I can and will always catch you. _But it had been raining all night, and the fight had clearly not been planned—he would never have been injured otherwise—and so she knew none of it was staged. It made her wonder, though, just what had actually happened.

"I had a disagreement with someone," he answered shortly, hardly sparing a glance for her in return. His tone gave her no leave to question him for more information, but she couldn't help herself. She had never seen him hurt before, never seen him bleed even one drop of his own blood. At times, when she'd tried to claw through his skin to get him to move off of her, or to let her breathe, she hadn't even been certain that he was physically capable of bleeding. She had to admit now that she was happy to see that he, like the rest of the world, had a vulnerability or two.

"You had a disagreement…" She paused, giving him a chance to speak, as she continued to put pressure on her arm to forestall the bruising. When he didn't immediately offer a name, she suggested quietly, "With one of your friends downstairs?"

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he muttered curtly, tossing his jacket on the floor and reaching down to pull off his sopping shirt. The fabric stuck to his skin as he tried to remove it, and the heap of drenched cotton a wet smacking sound as he threw it on the wooden floor a second later. He glanced over to her after he did so, but his blue eyes held none of the usual sneer he liked to employ while undressing in front of her. In fact, his gaze seemed to do nothing more than simply pass over her, as if just checking that she was still physically there for his use, before he ordered, "Take off your clothes."

Claire swallowed, staring at him as he bent over to undo his belt and the zipper on his pants. She knew without having to have him pull a knife on her that he was going to be rougher with her tonight than usual; she could tell from the way he acted and the tone with which he spoke. After all, he was not speaking with her, but _to _her. She'd known from the moment he'd grabbed her arm and led her away that tonight was not going to be an easy night—they rarely ever were—but still, he seemed inordinately angry tonight, and she knew what that meant. Whenever he had pent-up aggression and no way to release it on those who provoked it, he always came to her, and he beat it and fucked it and strangled it out of her until it was out of his system. With all that seemed to be going wrong inside the cult these days, she was thankful Joe had not yet resorted to treating her like his own personal punching bag, too.

But she supposed he had Ryan for that.

It had been months and months now since she'd last seen him, but her heart still twisted painfully at the thought of him, and she couldn't help but wonder—and she always did when she spared the shortest moment to think of him—where he was and what he was doing. She hadn't received news of him in days, but for once it didn't matter. The criminals around her hardly ever watched their mouths, particularly when they were angry, and so it hadn't taken long for their complaints about him to reach her ears. She was grateful, for that let her know he was still alive, and—if he was causing the cult that much grief—that he must still be relatively okay. She wondered if, wherever he was—Virginia or New York or somewhere in the middle of nowhere, like her—she wondered if he was thinking of her. She hoped to God he wasn't imagining something like this.

"Didn't you hear me?" Roderick snapped impatiently, his growling voice interrupting her thoughts as he kicked off his shoes, socks, and soaked pants. "Clothes, off. _Now_," he barked, making her jump, when she didn't move right away to undress. "Let's go; I don't have all night." He bent over to strip off his underwear, and when he stood back up, he was completely naked, but Claire no longer felt a surge of terror at the sight of his aroused flesh like she'd used to. He would do whatever he wanted with her, she knew, and she had long ago learned that there was nothing in her power to stop or stay him. Begging for mercy was as useless and stupid as screaming for help. All she could do was keep breathing—if he let her—and survive through it.

She stared at his face as he straightened up, watching as he lifted a hand to his disheveled, wet hair and roughly shoved it back from his forehead, combing it behind his ears. His mop of golden hair had been sticking up in all directions before, but now every strand looked sewn in place against his head—almost as if he'd gelled it—and for a second, when she looked at him like that, she could swear she knew him. Not as Roderick—not as her ex-husband's right-hand man, not as her rapist, not as her torturer and her tormentor, but as… _What? _her mind begged to know, as curious as it was confused. _As what? What else is in the world could he be?_

A memory tugged at her, just past the point where she could retrieve it, and though she tried to grasp it, the attempt was futile. She couldn't latch onto the recollection. Even when she tried to focus on—

"Are you suddenly deaf, Claire? Or are you trying to subtly tell me that you'd prefer I tore your clothes from your body?" Roderick's sharp voice snapped her attention away from her own thoughts as he swiftly made his way across the room to her in a few long, purposeful strides. "Would you like that? Hm? That way we can start rough and get even rougher. Because I _know_ just how much you like it rough, sweetheart." He grinned as he neared her, but even that was strangely devoid of his usual showmanship and black humor, and didn't quite seem genuine.

Claire wondered who in the world he could've gotten into a fight with that would upset him so much that he couldn't even relish threatening her anymore.

His hands were already pulling at her clothes by the time she found her voice: "I've—I've got it," she tried to tell him, doing her best not to shove him away too forcefully. She didn't want him to read the gesture the wrong way and smack her for being impertinent. He'd done it before and she did not look forward to having to sneak downstairs to steal ice while everyone else was asleep. Joe had a penchant for wandering the halls at night, and she hadn't yet found a good way to explain away such injuries to him. It would be better if she didn't end up having to go downstairs at all.

She pushed away his hands slowly, gently pressing against him until he finally stepped away. She took a deep breath before beginning, and let it out bit by bit while she—as slowly as she dared—began taking off her clothes. Though she usually avoided ever looking at him when he came to her like this, she had trouble keeping her eyes off of him tonight. There was just _something _about the way he looked that sparked something in her. She didn't know what it was, didn't even really know where to start, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere else. Like maybe they'd met before, or—

"I don't believe I asked you for a striptease," he snapped the moment she showed the slightest hesitation, his lip curling in a mixture of anger and disgust. He flicked his hand at her, ordering, "Get on with it," in a tone so dark that she knew—_she knew_—that the second there was no longer any clothing between them, he was going to be taking full advantage of the fact that he was bigger, faster, and unfortunately much, much stronger than her. There wouldn't be any drawn-out teasing or mock foreplay this time; he was going to get right down to it.

It was very, very hard for her to remove her two pieces of underwear like she didn't know what was coming, but she did it, because she also knew what would happen if she tried to refuse, and that would undoubtedly be so much worse. He'd make sure of it; he always did.

"Finally," was all he muttered once she was finished, reaching forward to grab ahold of her cheeks to keep her face still while he forced his lips on hers. His mouth was enraged and demanding against hers, and she could feel and taste his blood as he kissed her, virtually consuming her mouth with his. Though she knew it would not better her bleak situation to back away from him, she couldn't help it; she shrank away from his fury by instinct. As he sometimes had done in the past, tonight he met her step for step, and by the time she'd realized the error of her judgment, the backs of her legs had already hit the bed and then his hands were on her arms, pushing her back and down and worsening the bruise she knew had begun to form on her left arm. That side already ached, and the right would soon, too, if he kept this up. She also knew that that dull pain would prove to be the least of her worries by the time he chose to be done with her. It would just be a bruise, after all. She had suffered so much worse.

Though she'd always known he was fast, he still surprised her by how quickly he moved on top of her, how quickly he grabbed one of her legs to wrench them apart and open her for him, how quickly he bent down over her, his head ducked and his hair slicked back—

"_Wait._" Though she knew better than to speak—and much better than to refuse him—the word tore its way out of her mouth before she could hold it back. She swallowed as his eyes flashed to hers—he looked ready to kill her, really kill her this time—and she tried as hard as she could to hold off his rage for just a second longer. He looked _so familiar… _"Please," she whispered, just as much begging her mind as him, for the memory nearly taunting her now in its closeness, "Please, just wait a second—"

"I do _not_ have the patience for your inane pleas right now, Claire," he growled at her. His voice was distorted due to his injury, but the blood smeared on his face and the fierce look in his eyes communicated all the threats that his nasally tone could not: _Shut up or I will tie you up._ She swallowed, almost feeling her wrists and ankles begin to chafe. She couldn't let that happen again—not tonight, when he was already so enraged—but she couldn't shake that feeling from earlier, either. She couldn't just let it go.

Making up her mind quickly, she leaned forward, lifting her head from the bed and reaching out towards him. She tried not to give into the fear threatening to consume her entire being as she tentatively moved her hand towards his face. Her jerked away from her touch at once, but after a second try, she was able to hook a couple of finger beneath his chin. She lifted it slowly, looking him full-on in the face.

It felt like what she imagined receiving a shock of lightning might, when she looked into his eyes. Her entire body jumped, and she felt a bizarre shaking sensation spread out to her extremities. She could hardly breathe as she realized just what—_who—_she was looking at.

"Oh my god," she whispered in awe, barely able to believe it. "I—I remember you," she stammered, her head spinning as past and present merged before her very eyes. She blinked again and again but his face stayed the same. _He _stayed the same.

Roderick, either oblivious or—more likely—uncaring as to her epiphany, didn't bother to give her time to sort through it all. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped, but didn't wait for an answer before swatting her hand away from his face. The back of her hand burned from the sharp blow. "Stop trying to stall. Now move your—"

"I'm not," she blurted immediately, unable to hold it in. "I'm not trying to stall." _I know there's no point, anyway. _"I'm just—I'm saying I recognize you, from—from _before_. I remember you—_from Winslow!_" she nearly shouted, trying to get the words out before his hand could find its way around her throat.

His entire body froze above hers at her admission, and Claire watched in shock as his wide eyes stared, unblinking, into hers. She stared deeply back into them, trying to see into the past, incredibly aware of the fact that this was the first time she had ever truly caught him off-guard. His shock didn't last long; he recovered quickly, his eyes narrowing in on hers. "No," he told her firmly, putting emphasis on each word, "you do not remember me. I wasn't there."

"Yes, you were!" she exclaimed, certain of it now despite—or perhaps because of—his denials. "I remember you; I do!"

"_No,_" Roderick reiterated, louder this time,"you certainly do n—"

"You were the boy with the nosebleed!" she practically yelled as it all clicked, so happy, so relieved, that she could finally remember. In her mind's eye, she could see it, too—the young man sitting hunched over that school desk, clutching his nose as blood ran between his fingers; how he jumped up when he saw her. "I knew I knew you from somewhere when you showed up here like that," she explained breathlessly, gesturing at his bruised face, the dried blood around his nostrils. "But I hadn't realized exactly where until you pushed back your wet hair like that. It stuck to your head, and that's how you always used to look back then—so clean-cut. So mild-mannered. You had every last little thing in its place." She closed her eyes, breathing slowly as the memories flooded her. "That's why they made fun of you." She took a deep breath, wading her way through all the memories overwhelming her. "You were so young then," she whispered to herself, hardly able to believe the person in front of her had been that student in Joe's class. It seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago. "You were so shy, so…" She couldn't help but smile—really, truly smile for once—the change from past to present was that astounding. "You were so awkward, actually."

The fury in his eyes when he glared at her erased the brief sense of relief she'd experienced upon remembering and filled her, once again, with that familiar bone-shaking fear.

"I'm sorry," she whispered hurriedly, praying for mercy and hoping the apology was better late than never. She knew she was already treading on the most delicate ground in existence with him, and she did not want it to give way beneath her feet so soon. "I'm sorry, I just meant—I meant you were young. Everyone is different when they're young, especially in college, Roderick. You're finding yourself, deciding your future, and…" Something clicked in her brain then, when she said his name, and her eyes sought his again, in awe of what her memory was offering up. "You—you weren't Roderick back then," she realized aloud, her disbelief once again clouding her survival instinct. "You weren't, were you? You were—"

"_Don't,_" he snarled at once, his voice barreling over the name she'd been about to vocalize. He shoved his index finger in her face, and she shrank away from it as if it were a knife. "Don't say it."

She paused a second, staring into his eyes. The dark depths she found there made no secret of the horrors he had in store for her if she disobeyed him, and it was then that she figured it was in her best interests to stay quiet. She swallowed the name and, when she'd regained some of her courage, she appealed to him, hoping to influence him—or, at the very least, mollify what she knew to be a murderous spirit: "You were such a… a sweet boy back then. Timid, but—but _kind._" She shook her head sadly at the change, unable to keep her eyes from roaming over his face, as if memorizing his features would give her some clue as to what had gone wrong inside him. She did not understand how that shy, unassuming boy from her memory could turn into this man—this complete _monster _of a man. When she spoke next, it was partly without thinking and partly with much thinking. She knew what he'd do to her if she said his name. But she also knew what _not _knowingwould do to _her_ if she didn't say it. She knew how it would eat at her, how she would never be able to forget it, or move past it, not when she saw him so frequently… There would never be another chance after tonight. She had to say it. Had to ask.

_Had to know._

She sucked in as much breath as she dared without arousing suspicion, not wanting to give him any more incentive to wrap his hands around her throat than he already had. When she was ready, she looked him right in the eyes, and tried not to feel pity for the broken boy in her memory: "What in the world happened to you, Tim?"

His face contorted at once upon hearing the name he'd so long ago shed: his lips curled to bare his teeth, his swollen nose scrunched, his eyes blazed pure fury. Looking like a rabid, incensed animal, he bore down on her—and slammed his head against hers so hard that her mind shut down immediately, her vision going black.

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_It was late on a Friday afternoon, long after the last classes had concluded for the day, so she didn't hesitate upon entering her husband's classroom, or even bother knocking. His last class let out a half-hour earlier than hers, and so she knew that all of his students, even the ones who stopped to talk, would be long gone._

_When she walked in, however, she found a young boy sitting, hunched over in one of the chairs, and she almost turn around and walked right out again, thinking she'd come into the wrong classroom, or, foolishly, that his class was still in session._

_The boy's head had lifted at the sound of the door opening, and when he saw her enter the room, he flew out of his chair so fast she would've thought he'd been doing something illegal. From the look of his bloody nose, however, it seemed like he was guilty of nothing more than having lost a fight. The boy's mouth opened—it looked like he was in a rush to explain himself—but before he could, her husband's voice cut through the tense air._

"_Now, I don't really have much here, Tim. Just a box of tissues, which you can of course use, but—" Joe broke off, frowning when he saw the boy, Tim, up on his feet. Before he could ask what was the matter, however, he'd caught sight of his second visitor. He smiled at once, his face relaxing as he greeted her swiftly before turning back to the boy and offering the tissues. "Well, like I said, this is the best I've got. I think you'd be better off going to the Health Center—"_

"_I'm sorry," Tim interrupted him hurriedly, grabbing his things as quickly as he could, balancing his bag and coat in one hand as he struggled to cup the blood spilling from his nose with the other, "I'm so sorry, Professor Carroll, I shouldn't have come. I know you're busy and you have meetings and things to grade, I should really go—"_

_Claire's head was spinning around the boy's rapid speech; she could hardly keep up with what he was saying, let alone think of what to say herself, to convince him he didn't have to go anywhere, and that she could leave. Thankfully, Joe thought quicker on his feet than she did. _

_He put a hand on the boy's shoulder to calm him and hold him in place as he gestured to her. __"Tim, don't worry. This is my wife, Claire. And while she does work here, I can assure you that she's not here for a meeting, just to drive me home once we're finished." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper Claire could clearly hear from across the room. "I promise you she's nowhere near as frightening as she looks."_

_Tim eyed her warily for a minute—as if maybe she really did look frightening—but eventually he looked away, apparently mollified. The moment he turned away, Claire made a face at Joe, mouthing, 'Thanks.' He threw her an impish smile and motioned for a couple minutes._

_Claire stood in the middle of the room for an awkward minute, unsure if she was supposed to stay or go, and watched as the two did their best to mop up Tim's face—which had somehow managed to look worse and worse the more they cleared away the blood. She wasn't sure what had happened to this boy, but she was quickly realizing it was a lot more than a common nosebleed or a brawl in the quad. She hoped she was imagining the angry red-purple color the skin surrounding his jaw was beginning to take on, but something told her she wasn't._

"_So you teach here too?"_

_Claire jumped at the question, surprised to hear the boy addressing her directly. He spoke so quietly that, if she hadn't been looking directly at him, she thought she might not have even realized he'd been speaking. _

"_Yes," she answered once the surprise wore off. "Yes, I do."_

"_So you go by Professor Carroll, too, then? That must be confusing," Tim continued before she could answer, sounding almost annoyed at the prospect, "if everyone has to specify which one of you they're talking about all the time."_

_Claire forced a smile, feeling more than a little awkward here. She wished Joe had just told her to go when she'd shown up—clearly she wasn't needed here, and though it wasn't this boy's place to make her feel welcome, she would rather not force him to make small talk with someone he didn't seem to like very much. "We're in different departments," she told Tim. "And I kept my maiden name when we got married, so I go by Professor Matthews when I teach. There's really no confusion at all." She sought Tim's eye, and tried to offer a smile—hoping he might do the same if she initiated it. He did not._

"_She was too proud to take my name, if you'd believe it," Joe joked, once again cutting through the tension effortlessly, and grinning as he glanced between the two of them._

_Claire noticed that Tim smiled at Joe's aside, even though he'd barely seemed to have listened to her explanation. She wished again that she hadn't interrupted. Clearly she wasn't wanted here. She decided to try once more before throwing in the towel._

"_Do you need me to do anything? I could take him to the Health Center if you need to finish up…"_

_Joe shook his head at the offer. "No, no, it's all right; I'll take him. Tim and I have some things to discuss before we go, but then I'll be out, all right? I'll meet you in the parking lot."_

_Claire forced a smile, nodding. "Okay," she told Joe. "I'll be by the car." She turned to the boy sitting beside him, offering a weak, "Feel better soon, okay, Tim?" before leaving._

_If the boy replied, or thanked her, he mumbled it too low for her to hear, and Claire tried not to mind the silence. _Not every interaction with a kid is a test of my mothering skills, _she reminded herself, though she only partly believed it. She hesitated as she left, unable to help herself from looking back through the glass-paneled door, thinking maybe there was still something she could do. She watched Joe talk with the boy, put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly, and then reach forward with a handful of tissues to wipe some of the blood away himself. She couldn't help but smile at the sight, and comforted herself with the fact that, even if she turned out to be a terrible mother, at least Joe would be a perfect father._

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Claire returned to consciousness slowly, her head throbbing and her skin cold, feeling more disoriented than she had in practically her entire life. The memory was still playing across her vision as she blinked awake in the darkness, growing fuzzy and confusing her senses as she returned to herself. Her gaze had passed over him three separate times before she realized who she was looking at—before she realized who he had been, and who he was now.

He was sitting, hunched against the far wall, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head bowed over them. As her eyes adjusted to the dark of the room, she was able to see more—the blood smeared on his face and dripping down from his nose, the redness of his eyes, the tautness of his naked muscles…

She couldn't help but feel an immediate twinge of sympathy, of pity, for him, even as the logical part of her brain demanded to know what in the hell was wrong with the rest of her head. Her thighs were sore and her throat ached—she knew both would sport bruises in those places come the morning, just like her arms—and so she knew what he'd done to her while she'd been unconscious. But she stared at him now, crouched in the corner as he was, and she couldn't help but remember the young boy hunched over his desk, trying valiantly to hide the blood and the pain. Trying to leave before he was seen, and branded as weak. He almost looked like a child again now, and she was having trouble separating the two versions of him. She wondered how he had done it.

She sat up in bed, clearing her throat softly to catch his attention but subtly enough so as to not surprise him and set him off again. She should've known better—he didn't even blink when she opened her mouth to speak; he'd probably known she was conscious before even she did. "Joe told me, later that night, you know, after I saw you in his class… He said some of the kids at school were picking on you."

Roderick muttered something that sounded very much like a curse word under his breath, and Claire blinked at him in silent shock. She'd never before heard one conventionally vulgar swearword leave his lips before. (He said disgusting things to her all the time, yes, but those were always used under the guise of seducing her, or, in his less subtle moments—simply scaring the hell out of her by detailing just what he wanted to—and would—do to her.) Before she could wonder about his lapse in civility, however, he raised his voice. She could tell he was clenching his teeth together just by his tone, and though she couldn't see his mouth, she was sure his lips were barely moving; his whole being seemed strung taut in tightly controlled anger. She tried to brace herself for when he would snap again. "If by 'kids,' you mean adults twice my size, and by 'picking on,' you mean getting sent to the ER so often that the staff had my blood type memorized…" He chuckled coldly. "Then, _yes,_" he snapped abruptly, his laughter fading as quickly as it had appeared, with bitterness taking its place, "_Yes, _you're right, I was being _picked on _by kids at school_, _Professor Matthews."

Claire felt her stomach drop as those words left his mouth and his eyes locked onto hers. She wasn't sure how it was possible, after all he'd threatened to do to her and all he'd _actually _done to her—but those two words still such fear through her veins, he might as well have just told her that they had the mansion to themselves for the next two weeks. Hearing him address her like he was nothing more than an undergraduate again, and she an authority figure over him, put a vile taste in her mouth that made her sick to her stomach. She could hardly imagine a time when his presence did not dictate hers; a time when it was _him_ who avoided _her_ eye, when _he_ was the one trying to flee the room the moment she entered it.

"He wanted to help you, Joe did," she whispered, struggling to regain her composure again as his eyes left hers. "He—" Her voice rose with confidence as she remembered. "He was going to go to the dean. He told me so," she added, as if her conviction could change what had happened in the past.

"Oh, Joe did help me." Roderick laughed bitterly, but broke off halfway through with a snarl. Claire heard him curse under his breath again, and watched as he reached for his nose. His voice was clogged when he finished darkly, "But he didn't go to the dean."

"No," Claire agreed quietly, already having known that. "He didn't go to the dean. He taught you to kill your classmates instead. That was how he helped you."

Roderick's gaze flew to her at once, glaring and angry, and she got the feeling that if his nose hadn't been killing him, and his identity hadn't just been discovered, he would've jumped to his feet to come after her. But there was blood streaming down his face still, and so he threw words at her instead of punches. "Joe changed my _life_," Roderick growled, spitting blood along with emphasis as he spoke. "He _made _me." Roderick swiped beneath his nose roughly, smearing red across his face and hand, but clearing his mouth momentarily so he could speak. "Joe gave me confidence where I—as you so _astutely_ pointed out—had an overabundance of shyness. He gave me power where I had nothing—not even weakness, just—" he snarled the word with an animal-like ferocity "—_nothing_. He taught me everything I know; everything I hold dear. Everything that makes me _me._" Claire watched with rapt attention, struggling to catch up to the story, and understand the bitterness in Roderick's tone. She thought he and Joe got along exceedingly well. Where had this chip on Roderick's shoulder come from all of a sudden? Her eyes roamed over him as he sat, hunched, wiping the blood from his nose. She remembered watching Joe wipe his blood away himself all those years ago, but now it seemed Roderick had no one to help him… She realized who it was that had broken Roderick's nose, and moreover his spirit, just as he finished: "And now Joe's abandoned me. Cast me out like a disappointing son."

Claire searched for something appropriate to say—she felt the odd instinct to comfort him, in the wake of what she now knew had been Joe's abuse—but little came to her. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Joe had physically beaten his second-in-command. "Sure… Surely that must be better than killing you outright," Claire finally offered, not even knowing why she was trying but unable to stop. "Aren't… Aren't you happy you're still breathing?" she asked timidly.

He snorted—and then cursed again in pain—and turned partway around to face her. "I don't know, Claire," he began matter-of-factly, looking her dead in the eyes, "why don't you tell me? How many times have you contemplated suicide since you arrived here? Are _you _happy you're still breathing?"

She swallowed, struggling to ignore the chill of ice water he'd sent running through her veins with that question. "I'm happy you haven't killed me yet," she whispered, feeling the need to say it aloud, in the hopes that he wouldn't contradict her.

He only laughed bitterly. "Why?" he asked. "So you can lie here and wait, for me and for Joe?" His made a dismissive noise with his mouth as he waved his hand. "What sort of life is that to be happy about, even if the alternative is death?"

She didn't answer immediately, but instead stared at him, trying to sort out his motives. She could not understand why he suddenly cared about her opinion, suddenly was more interested in talking to her than fucking her. "Why are you asking me these things, Roderick?"

She watched him, watched as he pushed his chin out and clenched his teeth and turned his head away—(she couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was because she'd called him by the name Joe had given him and not his natural name anymore)—but eventually he spoke.

Despite everything that had happened since she'd come to the mansion—everything that she'd been prepared for and everything she hadn't—she had never, _ever _expected to be asked the question that came out of his mouth.

"Do you want out of here?"

She stared at him, too scared to answer truthfully. _What was he even asking?_ She wasn't sure anymore that that blow to the head had left her unscathed. _Did he really just say that? _And if he had, then was _he _the one with brain damage?

"I suppose I should accept your stupefied silence as a gracious 'Yes,' then," he concluded, eyeing her contemptuously. "Good," he continued before she could confirm. "It'll be easier to take you along if you aren't kicking and screaming like an ungrateful child the entire way," he murmured under his breath. She was going to ask what in the world he was talking about—did one fight with Joe really mean that his only option was to run away?—but he cut out her input, and decided her fate for her, as he always had: "Then it's settled. When I'm ready to leave, most likely tomorrow night, I will be taking you with me." He yawned, and then stated proudly, "You will be my immunity. And my insurance from being shot on sight," he added, sounding faintly annoyed at the concept, "should I run into your FBI friends earlier than expected."

His offer—and decision—was so unbelievable that it took her a while to process it. For many minutes she simply sat there, staring at him, waiting for him to yell _April Fool's!_ and go back to making her nightmares come true, not her dreams. But he didn't do that; he hardly even looked twice at her. He'd made up his mind and that was that.

But the more she sat and thought about it, the more she knew: there was a correction to be made. It was just one small addition, one small alteration to the plan—but she needed to convince him right here, right now. She knew there would not be another chance. She went over the proposition in her head; over and over and over again, until the words were practically falling off of her tongue.

Finally, she managed to open her mouth and say it. Her voice rang clear, and didn't shake, and she had hardly had a prouder moment in all her life: "Me and Joey," she corrected him boldly. "_We _will be your immunity. The both of us. Or…" She trailed off then, faltering, wondering what—if anything—she could use to persuade him. There was nothing she could give him; tonight was proof that he took whatever he wanted from her. And then, in a stroke of what she couldn't help but think was pure genius, she thought of something she could take from him, and threatened, "Or else I can go to Joe, and show him the bruises and tell him what you did to me."

She watched as Roderick's eyes flickered to her upper arm, and then down to her thighs as well. She didn't need to see anything except the look on his face to know that signs of his abuse were clearly visible now. He'd been sloppy tonight, and she would make sure he paid for it. He looked nervous at her threat and that made her feel giddy with unfamiliar power. She couldn't help but wonder if that was how he felt, too, whenever he had her pinned down beneath him, totally at his mercy—whenever held her fate in his hands and toyed with it before her very eyes. Did he feel as powerful as she felt right now, as powerful as God? For the briefest moment, she understood the appeal, and knew why he kept coming back to her again and again. "I can tell him how it wasn't the first time," she continued, feeling eerily calmly. "I'll tell him how you threatened me, and—" she didn't care that this part wasn't wholly true "—how threatened our son, to keep me quiet." She lifted her head, and looked down her nose at him. "You will never get out of here alive once he knows the whole truth about what you've done."

Roderick looked at her, glared at her so witheringly, that Claire was half-certain he was going to get up and strangle the life out of her right there and then. But then he leaned back against the wall and made a few threats of his own. "And?" he questioned pointedly. His cocksure smile returned, and already, her spirits began to sink. "So? Screw your sob story; what do you think Joe's going to do to _you_ once he knows _your_ wholetruth? You'll have to explain how it started and he won't like the reason behind how you and I ended up here together in the first place." He grinned when her face fell, watching the triumph slide off her features; like water over a cliff, it went crashing down. "You really think I'm just going to sit on your love affair with Ryan Hardy and keep quiet about it while you throw me to the dogs?" He clicked his tongue. "No, no, Claire, you don't get off that easy. That's not how this arrangement works." His dark tone morphed into a lighter one, and soon the room filled with a breathy, high-pitched whine as he mimicked her: "_Is Ryan okay? Oh, please, tell me if Ryan's okay. I'll do anything—"_

"I'll tell him you're lying," she shot back, unable to hear her own voice coming out of his mouth any longer—the resemblance was so uncanny it made her skin crawl. "Who's Joe going to believe, you or me? _I'm _the victim, Roderick—and I can prove it. What can _you _prove?"

He grinned lazily. "Oh, I can prove you're in love with him pretty easily, Claire."

"No, you can't," she snapped.

"Oh, please." Roderick snorted. "Don't think so highly of yourself, sweetheart. You're nowhere near as mysterious with these things as you think you are. All I have to do is so much as _pretend_ to threaten the man's life and you'll show your true colors."

Claire ignored that, however true it might be. "Joe won't care about whatever you have to say about Ryan once I tell him what you've done to me. He'll know you're only making it up to save face." Roderick was still smiling, and Claire raced to find a way to make that smile disappear, a way to make sure that Joey would be leaving here with her. "What do you think's going to happen, Roderick? Do you really think he'll just kill you?" She shook her head, forcing out a disbelieving laugh she hoped resembled the one she'd heard leave his mouth so many times. "Don't be stupid. You've been around him long enough to see how he operates. You remember the girls he killed at Winslow—he didn't even care about them, but did he give them quick deaths?" She shook her head. "So what about you? He's already broken your nose, and that's just for—" she borrowed his phrase "—disagreeing with him." She stared him dead in the eyes. "What in the hell do you think Joe will do to you once he finds out you've been raping his wife? Torturing her? _Right under his nose? _You've seen what he's done to Ryan. Think about what he'll do to you. Think about how much longer he'll make you live, just so he can draw it out. No one—_no one_—will want to help you. No one would risk it, you know that."

Roderick stared at her—_glared _at her—so menacingly that she was certain he not only _thought _he could kill her with his eyes, but that he was actually going to. But somehow she found it in her not to blink, and not back down, and she held his murderous gaze until he finally—miraculously—looked away. "Fine," he muttered, waving a careless hand. "I'll take you both. Two for the price of one." He tried hard to sound blasé about the exchange, but she knew the truth—and, for a second, she felt so triumphant that she almost called him out on trying to save face. But she quickly thought better of it, not wanting to have to experience his wrath conscious this time.

The thought reminded her of something else, and though she was not looking forward to it, she had to say it. It would get Roderick out of the room, before he thought any harder on their agreement and found a loophole, and that was all that really mattered.

"Joe might… He might come for me tonight," she informed him, hoping to hasten his departure. _Especially after you two fought, _she added silently, her self-preservation instinct kicking into overdrive. _Hitting you won't have been enough for him. He'll need another kind of release._

Far from getting up and leaving, Roderick merely smirked, and kicked his legs out as he rested his back against the wall. "Great," he muttered under his breath—but just loud enough for her to hear. "Then he'll find you all oiled up and ready to go." He sighed heavily, as if exhausted. "Yet another _thankless_ task I have performed for him. I'll add it to the never-ending list."

Though she wanted nothing other than to punch him in the jaw, or, better yet, in his already broken nose, Claire didn't stoop to reply. "I'm saying that he will come in here, Roderick." She spoke firmly, clearly, so he wouldn't miss the point. "He'll _be_ here." She stared at him, waiting for it to click, and when it didn't, she hissed, "Joe will _see you _here, in my room!"

Far from looking worried, as she'd expected, Roderick merely smiled, and tilted his head towards the closet door. "Oh, I can hide when he comes." Something mischievous glinted in his eyes as he looked at her. "You don't mind being _watched, _do you, Claire? No, of course you don't," he finished before she could tell him to shut up. His eyes regained some of their usual sick amusement as they glittered darkly at her. "Put on a good show, will you? I don't think I need to remind you that if he finds me here, you can be certain you will _never_ leave this place." He appraised her for a minute in silence before adding, "But if you play along like a good girl… Well, I might be so inclined to hand-deliver you to your precious Ryan Hardy, all in one piece. He will give me a handsome deal in return, I should think—especially considering the fact that I'm practically doing his job for him." The corners of Roderick's mouth turned up in a mocking smile as he whispered to her, "Plus, think of _all_ the little secrets I can share with him."

_Don't! _The word screamed inside Claire's head, but she didn't dare say it aloud. That would only encourage him, and make his threat a reality. She waited until she was sure she was calm before telling him, "Nothing you say will get you out of jail time, you know."

"Oh, I'm not trying to get out of jail time," Roderick assured her calmly. "Just trying to survive."

"In jail," Claire stated flatly, not bothering to hide her skepticism of his plan. "You're a sheriff." It was no secret to her that law enforcement professionals failed to live long once admitted to jail. Roderick would be going to a federal penitentiary, so maybe he wouldn't be sharing cells with men he'd put away, but it wouldn't matter. He was a cop, and cops were the same everywhere, to every prisoner.

"And I'll survive better in jail than on the streets, if you can believe it." He caught her eye. "Joe didn't bother planting any of us in prisons, so it's one of the few safe havens I'll find."

Claire didn't bother arguing with him—she would gladly let him throw away his life if he so chose—and instead focused the conversation towards something that really mattered. "What time are we leaving tomorrow?"

"Hm?" Roderick murmured, keeping his eyes shut. "I'm not sure. I'll see how the day goes. When I'm ready, I'll come for you, and then we will go."

"And Joey," she reminded him forcefully. "My son, he's coming—"

"_Yes,_" he groaned, lifting his head to bang it back against the wall. "Good Lord, woman, _yes_. You _and _your damn son. Now, _enough_. Will you let me sleep, please?"

Claire stared at him, curious and more than a little surprised. Was he actually going to sleep? Did he _really _feel safe letting his guard down like that while alone in her presence? After all he'd done to her, did he really not expect her to make an attempt on his life?

As if somehow reading her mind, Roderick spoke up through a yawn: "I will not hesitate in murdering you if you attempt anything untoward tonight, Claire. I only need one hostage to get myself out of here, don't you forget." He sighed heavily, his eyes still closed, and shifted to make himself more comfortable. "And if you are so down on your luck that the loss of your own life does not even dissuade you from trying, think on it again: _I only need one hostage._" He paused a moment, but Claire could hardly think in the short made no difference; he spelled it out anyway: "That hostage does not have to be your darling little boy if I don't want it to be."

Claire sat very still, focusing all her energy on breathing: in, and out. In, and out. _He won't kill Joey, _she told herself over and over again. _He won't._

But even she knew that wasn't completely true. Roderick would do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. In all the months she'd been locked up here with him, all the time she'd spent with him, she knew she had only just begun to scratch beneath the surface of this man she hoped—after tomorrow—to never see again.

She sent her prayers and she thought her good thoughts, and after a long while, tried to relax. By then, it was late enough that she knew Joe wouldn't be coming. It was late enough that she felt like the only person left awake on the earth, and she had nothing left to do with her time but wait it out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him as he slept. He looked so normal—so unassuming and non-threatening while asleep—that part of her still could not understand just what was wrong with him. Had he been born the way he was, or did he learn it all from Joe? If those upperclassmen at Winslow hadn't sent him to the hospital so many times, would he still have grown up to become a murderer and a rapist, a torturer and a corrupt cop?

She studied him, taking her time to stare at his closed eyelids, but his sleeping face offered her no answers. She wasn't sure she would ever get any, but if that was the price she had to pay for getting herself and her son out of Hell alive, she was willing to pay it.

She had lived this long, and curiosity would not be the thing that ended up killing her.

.

.

_**We are all our own Devil,**_

_**and we make this world our Hell.**_

_**Ah, ah, we make it our Hell...**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

**Author's Note:** Reviews would be so, so wonderful. If you have any opinions at all about this story, please share them below! Thank you so much for reading. This one took a lot out of me.


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